Novak Djokovic has reunited with his long-time former coach Marian Vajda for the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, which begins on Sunday. Vajda has been helping the former World No. 1 in his preparations for the European clay-court swing. Djokovic and Vajda trained at the Pepe Imaz Academy in Marbella, Spain, last week and on Thursday morning Djokovic hit with fellow Monte-Carlo resident Grigor Dimitrov on Court Rainier III. On Saturday, the Serbian practiced for two hours with David Goffin during a session that was watched courtside by Vajda and former World No. 8 Janko Tipsarevic. [ALSO LIKE] Vajda coached Djokovic between June 2006 and May 2017. The 30-year-old Djokovic, who captured the Monte-Carlo title in 2013 and 2015, is looking to...
Max Mirnyi had faced Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan plenty before taking the court Friday evening at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men's Clay Court Championship in Houston. In fact, the Belarusian had played the brothers 54 times (31-23), and lost nine of their past 10 FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings. But despite the 39-year-olds carrying a seven-match winning streak into the semi-final, Mirnyi and partner Philipp Oswald were too good on the night, ousting the recent Miami Open presented by Itaú champions 6-4, 2-6, 10/6. The Belarusian-Austrian duo dropped two of their first three service points in the Match Tie-break, but rallied from 4/3 down to win seven of the match's final nine points, advancing to the final. This...
John Isner coolly steps to the baseline like he has thousands of times before. He bounces the ball between the legs of his 6’10” frame, and then again off the court three times with his racquet, and four times with his hand. Just as he lifts his left arm to toss the ball into the air, slightly in front of him, his racquet-wielding right arm begins its own upward motion simultaneously. The 32-year-old eventually launches toward the sky and at the last moment, Isner turns his wrist so the stringbed meets the ball, producing a devastating result. Isner sends the ball flying as if he is wielding Thor’s hammer. The result is a blazing 138 mile-per-hour ace down the 'T'...
#NextGenATP American Taylor Fritz had never made an ATP World Tour semi-final on clay before this week. In fact, he had only played three clay-court matches combined on the ATP World Tour and the ATP Challenger Tour prior to his Houston debut. But judging by his play Friday, you wouldn’t know it. The 20-year-old battled back from a 4-2 deficit in the deciding set to oust 2015 winner Jack Sock 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship and move into the semi-finals. "I felt like it could really go either way. I just had to get back in it," Fritz said. "I just stayed with it and was able to come up [good]...
